Be Wary of the Never Trumpers

Nov 9, 2016

RUSH: Coronado, California, start with Bob. It’s great to have you, sir. What’s up and how are you?

CALLER: Hey, good. Thanks, Rush, and Trey Gowdy for Supreme Court dittos. Hey, you really have a unique next-level thinking ability and combined with your sense of humor, it’s a real gift, and I wanted to ask you a question ’cause I’d like to see how you would maybe turn this around on the Never Trumpers. Yeah, we’re getting ready to throw the final shovels of dirt on the Never Trumpers’ graves, and their goal was 100% to stop Trump and make Hillary the next president.

But my question for you is, after all they did, what George Will and Romney and W. and all the Never Trumpers, is it possible that they in fact helped fuel the Trump movement and should Donald Trump actually thank them because perhaps his win wasn’t possible without the —

RUSH: Look, you may be right with the first thing you said. I think the Never Trumpers may indeed have helped fuel and keep energized Trump support. I think that kind of motivation is frequent and it very likely wouldn’t be the sole reason they were motivated. I think the things they really care about, they really care about. They were not gonna let anything happen to Trump. ‘Cause Trump was the way to advance what they want. They didn’t care what Trump says. They don’t care about anything Trump did in his past.

It wasn’t about Trump. It was about saving this country for their kids and their future, and they weren’t gonna let anybody take Trump out the way Republicans are taken out. And if the Never Trumpers join the chorus of people trying to take Trump out, they probably got even more energized and more committed to Trump. But what was the other thing you said, should Trump reach out to them, did you say?

CALLER: No. In a way, should he poke ’em in the eye on the way out the door and basically thank them —

RUSH: No, there’s an analogy here, there’s an analogy here, although it is not quite perfect, but 1980 is a bit of analogy. The Republican establishment did not like Ronald Reagan. They were disgusted by Reagan, ’cause they didn’t like conservatives, and they thought Reagan was a dunce and didn’t know what he was doing and was risky. But they all wanted to shine in his light once he was inaugurated. Now, I am gonna thank you and hang up, but the story continues based on things I saw last night, so don’t go away.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Sticking with the question from the caller, Bob in Coronado, California. In 1980, Ronald Reagan was told after he won that he’s gotta make overtures to the Rockefeller Republicans. That was the 1980s version of the establishment. And Reagan for the most part said, “Nah. You guys tried to beat me! Why should I go out of my way?” And then he did. He bought some people in from the so-called Rockefeller side, including George H. W. Bush, and some might even say James Baker.

Look, the point here is last night Dana Perino on Fox — a Bushie. She was White House press secretary following the death of Tony Snow. And, by the way, she was one of the chorus of people on Fox last night, and it was legion, during the period of time where they thought Trump was losing in a landslide… See, Trump was never losing in a landslide last night, folks. They just hadn’t counted the votes yet. Trump was never losing in a landslide, and he didn’t “mount a comeback” after 7 p.m.

Trump won the election during the day yesterday and during the early voting and absentees. There was no comeback last night. All there was, was counting the ballots. Trump had not lost in a landslide after seven o’clock. Trump had won! We just didn’t know it until about three o’clock in the morning. But during the period of time when they were reporting that Trump was losing in a landslide, you know why? It was these establishment Republican types who’ve been telling us for minimum four years and maybe eight that we can’t win without the Hispanic vote.

Well, we did, didn’t we?

We blew that to smithereens, didn’t we?

Trump got a little bit more of the Hispanic vote than Romney did, but not significantly. This is not a criticism of Hispanics. Please don’t misunderstand me here, folks. This is not complicated. You had people in the Republican establishment and the Democrat side who were dead wrong about what we have to do to win the presidency, and one of the many things that they said we had to do was reach out to Hispanics, and what they meant by that was stand for amnesty. We had to become open borders. We had to grant citizenship to the illegal aliens in the country.

If we didn’t do that, we were never, ever gonna win. And last night during the coverage, when they were reporting that Trump was losing in a landslide (when he never was losing in a landslide), they kept citing that as the reason. They’d go to Florida. They’d go to North Carolina. They’d go to other states where they said they had all kinds of data on all the brand-new Hispanic voters. Massive Hispanic turnout in the early vote, in the absentees, and it was the reason Trump was losing in a landslide. Trump was never losing in a landslide!

And, therefore, the reason they gave, Hispanics, was never real. And this is this kind of stuff that passes for learned analysis and news. None of that was real! In fact, the prognostications they have been making about “We can’t win unless we do this…” And, by the way, there’s things besides get the Hispanic vote. That’s just been the biggie for eight years. “We can’t win without the Hispanic vote.” As I mentioned the top of the program, I’ve had candidate after candidate come to see me in the office and tell me, “Rush, we don’t have votes!

“We can’t win with Republican votes alone. We just can’t do it. We have to reach out to Democrats and their issues.” It’s just been frustrating as it can be to sit here and listen to them say this, because what I’ve been listening to these people tell me is how they can’t win. Their party can’t win. They want to lead a party that they, in their own mind, don’t think can win. And I said, “What in the name of Sam Hill is this?” So this vaunted need for the Hispanic vote… Look, I’m not opposed. Don’t misunderstand.

If Hispanics want to turn around and support us in droves, that would be wonderful. That’s not the point! The point is the experts telling us that we were gonna lose were wrong again, and they were wrong about why. The pollsters got everything wrong. They couldn’t have been more wrong. (laughing) The LA Times poll was right and the IBD/TIPP poll was right and the Trafalgar poll was right. There are three of them were right, and all these other vaunted polls were blow up to smithereens, and they’re asking themselves today: What did they miss? What did they do wrong?

And there are many of them saying the polling industry is worth zilch today because of this. They didn’t take the time to leave their bubbles and actually learn who Trump voters were. They did nothing but impugn them. They laughed at ’em, they made fun of ’em, they didn’t believe that they represented big numbers when they showed up for Trump rallies. They had their bigoted prejudice in mind about people that would vote for Trump, and they just constantly forgot them and cast them aside. (interruption) Mmm-hmm. (interruption) Well, I’ll explain that.

Snerdley’s asking me about Nate Silver stuff. That’s a computer program that was changing with input data. Nate Silver was not sitting there with his slide rule and calculator. They’ve got an algorithm, and as election returns come in mixed with polling data, it would automatically change what his projected percentages were. The New York Times had the same thing. Excellent point. By the way, you can look at the New York Times projection page last night and their graph, and you can look at seven o’clock. Hillary was a 94% chance to win.

Based on what? At seven o’clock nobody knew anything because no votes had been counted! That’s why it said, “Trump with a major comeback.” There was no comeback. He won! I’m sorry to get so frustrated by this. But this is just common sense. It’s all these computer programs rating somebody’s percentage chance to win? How do you go at seven o’clock with Hillary at 80 or 85% chance to midnight Trump 97% chance and have any credibility? Do you realize how worthless your website or projection was at seven o’clock with Hillary at an 85% chance?

Based on what? They hadn’t even counted any votes.

It was all exit polls and other interviews then. Anyway, to close the loop on this story, after hearing throughout this period that Trump was losing in a landslide (when he never was) because he didn’t have the Hispanic vote, because the Republican Party hadn’t reached out, ’cause Trump had offended them — all this rigmarole, razzmatazz. At the end of the night they were all saying something along the line… Except Karl Rove wasn’t, but Dana Perino and some others were saying, “I’m sure that, uh, uh, members of the previous Bush administrations would be happy, uh, to join the Trump administration, and they’d be happy to help, uh, Mr. Trump.”

I’m watching this and I’m saying, “What?” Of course they would now! The light’s gonna be bright. Everybody’s a winner now. Of course, they want in on it now. But I’d keep this as arm’s-length ’cause, folks, I’m gonna tell you something. And I’m not trying to be negative today, ’cause I’m feeling great. I’m just warning you. I have learned. I’ve followed this stuff all of my life, and I can tell you what’s going to happen. I can tell you what’s gonna happen when Trump nominates judge for the court as I just did. I can tell you how they’re gonna try to delegitimize his election and presidency with this Electoral College business.

The establishment of both parties… You think they’re just gonna go away?

You think they’re gonna say, “Wow, the American people really like this guy. I guess we’d better change.” You think the banks are gonna change the way they think about things? Do you think Wall Street’s gonna change the way it thinks about things? It isn’t gonna happen. What’s gonna happen is the establishment is the establishment, and they’re gonna do everything they can to undermine Trump’s presidency. They’re out there saying the right things today, being magnanimous, gotta work with Trump, give Trump a chance, all that, get that on the record.

They’ll go through the transition and make it look like they’re trying to help even, get some people with really great experience and resumes to get on Trump’s team, help him out here. But the purpose, the objective from the get-go is to delegitimize his presidency, or to subordinate it, to undermine it, to take it over, you know, get some establishment types in the cabinet, get some establishment types in the regulatory agencies.

They are who they are and they are the power, in their minds. This election doesn’t change the balance of power. This election doesn’t change who really runs the world. Not in their minds. They don’t just say, “Okay, you guys won, we lost,” and then slink away to wherever they live in the Hamptons or Davos and come back in four years and try to win it back. That’s not who they are. This is power for all the marbles, and it’s an ongoing battle. It never takes a day off because it’s all about money, folks. It’s about who is in charge of it, who gets to spend it — by that I mean who gets to buy what they want, in terms of people and policy.

It’s all about money and access to it and power over it, and, at the margins, getting rich personally, too, if you can manage that in all this, that’s a little bonus, icing on the cake. They’re just as mad at Trump today, maybe more so, as they were yesterday. Their shock and disbelief is not going to transmogrify into admiration and respect and a desire to be part of the Trump team. There might be some of them, but I would be wary of Trojan horses. I know who these people are. If not the people, I know how these kind of clubs work. So just my two cents, but as I always say, don’t doubt me.